Myanmar police are trying to clear the roads of thousands of cyclone survivors whose desperation has reduced them to begging for food from passing cars.
With little official aid reaching the hardest-hit regions, volunteers have been driving to villages to deliver aid themselves.
Less than half of the 2.4 million cyclone victims have received official aid, the UN said, leaving many forced to survive on handouts.
PHOTO: AFP
Police, soldiers and immigration officers have put up roadblocks to question foreigners on the main route from Yangon into the devastated town of Dedaye in the delta, which bore the brunt of the storm that left 133,000 dead or missing.
Now police are warning volunteers against making donations, threatening to suspend their driving licenses.
“Aid goods should be given out at relief centers only,” one officer told a volunteer trying to give food to cyclone victims.
“The people should learn to feed themselves. They should return to their homes,” the officer said. “We do not want foreigners to think we are a country of beggars,” he said, jotting down the number plate and the volunteer’s ID number.
Police say they are trying to ensure the safety of the crowds of people who now line the region’s few roads, hoping for handouts.
Desperation has grown so intense that hundreds of people stampede every passing car, hoping to grab even a scrap of food.
Along the road leading to Dedaye, thousands of people wait, hoping for someone to give them food or clean water.
Military officials are distributing leaflets urging volunteers to stop giving food on the roadside, claiming that “some of the children and the adults are not victims of the cyclone.”
“For this reason, donors are advised not to make donations to anyone,” the leaflet reads.
“We encourage them to directly contact authorities in places where refugee camps have been set up,” it said, in order to avoid “arousing the scorn of tourists” and undermining “the dignity of the Myanmar people.”
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS